Why Poetry

Happy National Poetry Month, Poetry Soup... Poetry should not be considered a luxury Only to be enjoyed by the privileged few… The cultural and cerebral elite. Poetry need not be weighed down By deeply ponderous metaphysical messages To be worth one's time to read it. But why do we many who are not privileged enough To belong to the aforementioned categories need poetry? We need poetry to tell us about things Like joy and beauty, And passion and love, And wonder and wisdom, And creativity and truth. In other words… Everything that gives life merit And makes the living it And the telling about it all worthwhile. Most things in life are ephemeral, at best. All things, in time… Monoliths and monarchs, Pyramids and politics, Religions and reliquaries, Baseless bigotries and, yes, even books… Wear out, corrode, Rot and decay, And eventually turn to dust And are erased from memory. Poets, too, after passing through, will pass away, But the spirit they infuse In the verses they create and leave behind Becomes, somehow, infused With the metered, Albeit chaotically cadenced spirit Of the poetry of the universe, And becomes, therefore, eternal, And indestructible.